The aftermath of Blitzo's impromptu flight was, predictably, a mess of noise, invoices, and burgeoning panic.
"—AND MY SPINAL ALIGNMENT IS PERMANENTLY OFF-KILTER!" Blitzo's voice screeched from the garden below, only slightly muffled by a mouthful of angry petals. Millie was trying to brush dirt off him while Moxxie nervously aimed his rifle at the broken window above.
Stolas, however, was focused on the immediate problem in the hall. Darkness had retreated from the window the moment Stolas approached, but not to his corner. He'd backed into the opposite wall, wings mantled, a low, continuous growl emanating from his chest. His four eyes were fixed on the doorway, waiting for the loud threat to come up the stairs.
"He's posturing," Stolas murmured to Octavia, holding an arm out to keep her behind him. "He's defending the territory."
"Great. He's a seven-year-old with siege mentality."
"Little one," Stolas called, his voice a practiced calm. "The intruder is gone. You are safe. You defended your nest. Very good."
The word "good" seemed to short-circuit something. The growling hitched. One of Darkness's eyes flicked toward Stolas. Good? The concept didn't map. His actions were cause and effect: threat arrived, threat removed. The judgment attached to it was alien.
The moment of confusion was broken by the stomping of boots on the grand staircase.
"Alright, where is the little winged gargoyle? I have a medical bill here with his name—oof!"
Blitzo, having stormed up, reached the top step just as Darkness's brief confusion hardened back into fury. The child didn't summon a wind this time. He hissed, and the very air in front of the doorway thickened. It wasn't a wall, but a sudden, intense pocket of pressurized atmosphere.
Blitzo ran face-first into it as if hitting gelatine. It slowed him to a comical, struggling crawl, his face squished against the invisible barrier. "Oh, you have GOT to be kidding me!"
"Fascinating!" Stolas gasped, his scholarly awe overriding the crisis. "Passive atmospheric manipulation! A deterrent rather than a projectile!"
"Dad, maybe don't sound so excited about the toddler building a force field," Octavia snapped.
Darkness held the pressure wall for ten full seconds, his small body trembling with the effort, before it popped with a sound like a released suction cup. Blitzo stumbled forward, free.
Everyone froze.
Blitzo stared at the panting child. Darkness stared back, defiant but exhausted. The imp's expression shifted from rage, to surprise, then to a slow, calculating grin.
"Huh," Blitzo said, all the anger draining from his voice. He straightened his coat. "Okay. Okay, kid. Point made. You're a scrappy little ball of issues." He looked at Stolas, and the grin turned predatory. "You know, for a significant fee, I could see about sourcing some… specialized items. Kid-sized shock collar? Magic-dampening mittens? I know a guy in Greed who works with volatile assets."
"You will do no such thing!" Stolas's voice was sharp, final. "He is not an 'asset.' He is a child under my protection. Your services are not required."
"Suit yourself, your birdliness. But when he melts your face off because you tried to give him the wrong color sippy-cup, don't come crying to I.M.P." With a last, appraising glance at Darkness—who was now slumping against the wall, the adrenaline crash hitting him—Blitzo turned and left, his crew in tow.
The hall was quiet again, save for Darkness's ragged breathing.
The exhaustion was the key. Stolas recognized it from the first night. In the crash after an outburst, the child was vulnerable, pliable. Slowly, he approached.
"You are very strong," Stolas whispered, kneeling a few feet away. "And very tired. Come. It is time to rest."
Darkness didn't have the energy to resist. When Stolas gently gathered him up—the child was shockingly light—he went limp, his head lolling against the prince's feathered chest. He was asleep before Stolas laid him on the divan and tucked the blanket around him.
---
Later, in his observatory, Stolas was not studying stars. He was studying a single, indigo feather he'd found on the balcony railing. It was not his. It was not Paimon's black. It was new.
"Andromalius," he whispered to the night.
A lesser-known Goetia earl, a master of spies and retrieval, renowned for his… acquisitive tastes. If Paimon had discarded Darkness as worthless, others in the family might see him as a unique, unattached resource. A weapon, or a curiosity to be collected.
The game had just gotten more dangerous.
---
Meanwhile, Octavia found she couldn't focus on her music. The memory of the shared headphone, the shocking calm on the feral child's face before Blitzo ruined it, stuck with her. An idea, stupid and impulsive, formed.
She waited until the palace was still. She crept to his room. He was awake, sitting on the divan, just staring at the wall.
"Hey," she said softly from the doorway.
He looked at her.
She didn't enter. Instead, she pulled a small, old mp3 player from her pocket—a sturdy, simple thing. She turned it on, selected a track of ambient, wordless synth-wave, and placed it on the floor just inside the room. Then she retreated back to the hall, sitting against the wall opposite his open door.
The soft, rhythmic pulses of electronic sound filled the space between them.
Darkness watched the little device for a long time. Then, he slithered off the divan, approached it, and sat beside it. He didn't pick it up. He just listened, his head tilted, his feathers finally, fully relaxed.
From her spot in the hall, Octavia listened too. No words were exchanged. No understanding was verbally reached. But in the quiet, shared space of the haunting melody, a fragile, silent truce was formed. It wasn't family. It was simpler than that.
It was the acknowledgment that in the endless, noisy hell of their lives, they both sometimes needed the same thing: a way to drown out the world.
In the shadows of a distant tower, Andromalius watched through a far-seeing lens. He saw the prince's worry, the imp' avarice, and now the princess's compassion. He noted it all. A target with growing attachments was a target with growing weaknesses. And a weapon that could be soothed was a weapon that could, potentially, be stolen.
He closed his observation ledger. The assessment was complete. The next phase could begin.
In his room, lulled by the synthetic beats, Darkness slept a deep, dreamless sleep. For the first time, the storm inside him was not raging, nor was it forcibly contained. It was simply… quiet. It was a peace he had never known, and it was more disorienting than any terror. But as he slept, one small hand reached out and rested on the cool plastic of the mp3 player, holding onto the anchor of its steady, artificial rhythm.